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Senior Research Associate, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge
David Connell has been a Senior Research Fellow then Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Business Research at the University of Cambridge since 2006. He was previously founding Chief Executive of TTP Ventures, a Cambridge-based venture capital fund specializing in early stage science and technology-based ventures with funding from Boeing, Siemens and financial institutions. From 1989 to 1997, Connell was Head of TTP Group's Strategy Division, providing consulting advice on technology exploitation, innovation and business development strategy to a wide range of clients including Shell, BP, Nortel, ICI, Barclays Bank and Cambridge University. Today, he combines directorships with TTP Capital Partners and various technology-based companies with his academic research position.
David’s research interests include business models for new science and technology companies, technology commercialisation strategies, and government science and innovation policy. He is architect of the UK government’s Small Business Research Initiative (renamed Contracts for Innovation in 2024) based on the US SBIR. In 2016/17 he carried out a major independent review of SBRI for 10 Downing Street.
His 2021 review of R&D Tax Credits and the Patent Box was cited by Rishi Sunak in his 2022 Mais lecture and influenced subsequent changes. Other research includes the the role and operations of DARPA and intermediate research organisations in the US, Germany, Taiwan and Korea,
He has given evidence to a number of parliamentary select committees on these subjects.
David's 2024 report with Professor Bobby Reddy - Selling Less of the Family Silver: Better Innovation and Industrial Policies for Economic Growth - addresses what is arguably the most challenging problem facing policy makers, the early sale of the UK’s most promising new STEM based companies to foreign corporations and the subsequent truncation of growth in the UK.
This and other publications can be found on his website.
